CFP: St. John’s University World History Theory and Practice Conference: Migrants and Refugees

**Proposal deadline extended to February 1, 2019

Migration, whether voluntary or involuntary, lies at the heart of world history. The movement of people, regardless of circumstances, and their cultures, family networks, foods, and material objects continues to reshape society at local, regional, and global scales. These movements ought to inform the ways educators frame and teach about the past. That human beings, texts, ideas, and things have always been in motion undermines static representations of global society. Grappling with the implications of these migration flows remains an exciting challenge for practitioners of world history. read more

The submission deadline for the International Conference on War and Social Movements has been extended to February 1, 2019.

Movements for social change have often preceded or immediately followed periods of warfare. The temporal proximity of social movements and warfare raises several interesting questions. Among others, in what ways have movements for social change been linked to periods of violent conflict? How might war contribute to the expansion or limitation of rights for marginalized and oppressed groups? How does warfare shape the attitudes and strategies of social activists in local, transnational, and global contexts? This inter-disciplinary academic conference seeks to examine these and other relevant questions. read more

Regarding the Pain of Others: What Emotions have to do in the History of Humanitarian Images.

A workshop organized by the Institute for Ethics, History, and the Humanities (University of Geneva) and the Geneva Centre for Education and Research in Humanitarian Action (University of Geneva).

Taking the title of Susan Sontag’s seminal work as a starting point, this workshop aims at re-opening an old debate about the potentialities of exhibiting other’s suffering in order to promote a culture of peace, prevent war and/or resolve conflict. Sontag concluded in her book that images of atrocities had led the Global North to a form of
exhaustion, also called compassion fatigue, which has been criticized more recently as a myth. Yet, images remain today the main strategy of humanitarian organizations to raise awareness and funds. read more

In 2017, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) published the second edition of its guide Women, Girls, Boys and Men. Different Needs – Equal Opportunities: GenderHandbook in Humanitarian Action (2017), explaining the necessary gender approach in all humanitarian response, showing that the two fields are closer than never and marking the efforts made in this direction for the last two decades. Traditionally, while referring to
gender, the history of humanitarian aid traditionally privileged the image of women as victims. The newest scholarship is breaking with this pattern. In a first time, research recuperates the hidden stories of women in the humanitarian, and the contributions of Linda Mahood and Tarah Brookfield mark an important step in this direction. In a second
time, historians, but also political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, are willing to explore the humanitarian aid through the gender lens. Their effort takes looking into how socially constructed practices dictated the assignment of specific roles, hierarchies, responsibilities and expectations to men and women working in the humanitarian effort,
but also how structural unequal gender roles present on the field, among the beneficiaries, undermined or even completely compromised humanitarian actions. Recent academic encounters (Gender & Humanitarianism. (Dis-)Empowering Women and Men in theTwentieth Century, 2017, Gendering Humanitarian Knowledge, 2018, L’humanitaire:nouveau champ de recherche pour l’histoire de l’Europe, 2018) and papers (Carpenter
2003, Dolan, 2014; Olivius, 2014, Jones 2013) made already important steps in this second direction. The conclusions drawn from these studies underline the confusion surrounding the term gender, but also the lack of appropriate gender related action on the field. The researchers point out the unilateral, top down, sometimes sterile perspective
humanitarians have, one that ignores the diversity of historical, geographical, cultural, political spaces, as well as local particularities that shaped, negotiated, sometimes disrupted traditional roles and gendered identities. read more

Journalist and author Shrabani Basu will provide a distinguished lecture on Indian soldiers related to her recent work: For King and Another Country (2015). Prior to the conference, she will also host a screening of Victoria and Abdul, a film based on her book of the same name. Historian of the British Empire Dr. Susan Kingsley Kent will provide the keynote address. Her esteemed works include Aftershocks: Politics and Trauma in Britain, 1918-1931 (2009); The Women’s War of 1929: Gender and Violence in Colonial Nigeria (2011) and The Global Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 (2012). read more

Taking the title of Susan Sontag’s seminal work as a starting point, this workshop aims at re-opening an old debate about the potentialities of exhibiting other’s suffering in order to promote a culture of peace, prevent war and/or resolve conflict. Sontag concluded in her book that images of atrocities had led the Global North to a form of exhaustion, also called compassion fatigue, which has been criticised more recently as a myth. Yet, images remain today the main strategy of humanitarian organisations to raise awareness and funds. read more

by Deniz Yonucu

reposted from H-Announce. The byline reflects the original authorship.

Human Rights Work and Transnational Legal Activism: Limits and Potential February 8 and 9, 2019

International human rights laws and bodies have been one of the key sites of the struggle against state crimes and human rights abuses in the post-World War II era. Yet, the discrepancy between the promises of international human rights laws and what they actually do has not gone unquestioned. While in some contexts numerous international treaties, conventions and regulations have served as a means of pressuring governments to improve human rights, in certain other contexts international human rights laws and movements have become a part of the problem. The constituents of international human rights movements have frequently been criticized for being complicit with neoliberal and neocolonial projects and policies. read more

Call for Papers for the CNHH sessions at the 2019 CHA Congress.

Deadline to submit: October 1.

The CNHH sponsored sessions at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association in Vancouver in 2019 will be on Official Development Assistance, especially questions of training and education in the aid field, universities and internationalization, other aspects of settler colonialism and humanitarianism, Canada and international aid organizations, etc.

It is coordinated by David Meren, who is preparing a paper on “‘Development’: Settler Colonialism and the Origins, Life and Demise of the United Nations Regional Training Centre for Technical Assistance at UBC”.

McGill University, 7-8 March 2019

In recent decades, there has been a great deal of attention given to modern sanctuary practices,
ranging from the sanctuary offered to asylum seekers from Central America in the 1980s to recent
efforts to declare university campuses, cities and states sanctuary spaces. Although much of the
focus has been on contemporary activities in the United States, sanctuary is a global, and deeply
historic phenomenon. read more

Call for Papers

Culture & International History VI: Visions of Humanity

6-8 May 2019 in Berlin

John F. Kennedy Institute, Freie Universitaet Berlin

Deadline: July 8, 2018

The conference Culture and International History VI will take place from 6 – 8 May 2019 in Berlin. The conference marks the 20th anniversary of the symposium cycle that began in 1999 and has since taken place in Wittenberg, Frankfurt, Cologne, and Berlin; key themes and contributions have been published in Berghahn Books’ series Explorations in Culture and International History (Oxford, New York, since 2003). read more